Title: When we weren't speaking
Authors: Pene and august
Email: penelopody at hotmail, appelsini at hotmail
Codes: Josh, Kenny
Rating: in this story, Josh is shot and also fucks Kenny. we believe only
the first needs to be disclaimer-ed.
Disclaimer: any similarity between persons or places mentioned herein and
actual persons living or dead, persons invented by another, actual places
or places you might once have been is entirely unintentional and coincidental.
except for you, Francis J. Mullinger. give us back our red shoes.
Note: sometimes we make things up.
Acknowledgements: to Christinecgb who edited us. and Luna who answered some
emergency questions
Summary: the first time he didn't see
it coming.

When we weren't speaking by Pene and
august

I. In which Josh remembers his youth

When Josh was twenty-four he spent four days
in Vegas with a
translator who worked in his office building. She read the New
Yorker to him in Cantonese and fed him in their hotel bed.

After the shooting, during his apartment exile,
he spent afternoons
trying to find her. It was much more than a decade since he'd seen
her; he didn't remember her name but couldn't forget the most
amazing mouth of his early twenties.

Using his cane, he meets Donna in his hallway.
"I think I'm having a
mid-life crisis."

She brushes past him, briefly resting a hand
on his back. He follows
her into the kitchen. "Donna, your boss just told you he's having a
mid-life crisis. You'd think, you know, you'd be a little more
concerned. It could be all toupees and sports cars from here."

"Death-bed confessions, Donna. You have
to take me seriously, the
law says so." He eases into a chair at the kitchen table, still sore
skin stretching with movement. She doesn't laugh, never laughs
anymore, and he isn't sure if he even finds it funny.

She says, "Josh, I know how much you make.
You'd have to take out a
loan to buy a sports car."

They eat in silence, (and he wondered whether
he would have left, if
he could have.)

II. In which Josh believes himself invincible

The bathroom light blinks out while Josh is
brushing his teeth. He
has spare bulbs somewhere, but in the semi-dark the ceiling looks
far away and he's never spent a lot of time looking in the mirror.
Two days later the kitchen light and one of the living room lamps
hiss and flicker to black almost simultaneously. Josh glares at the
dead bulbs. He's never liked the feel of that fine powdery glass
between his fingers. He leaves them.

It's possible the sound of a blown light bulb
is a little like the
sound of a gunshot. Josh wouldn't know anything about that; he heard
Karen Carpenter sing, "I'm on the top of the world" and then he
was
in darkness.

For the first few weeks he had trouble remembering
the particular
combination of medication he was supposed to take. Donna tried to
make rhymes ("when it's blue you take two") but it was Sam who made
him a spreadsheet with a boxes to tick off. Josh is quietly
confident in being smarter than most people he meets. Josh answers
directly to the President of the United States. Josh ticks off boxes
on charts like he's in grade school.

(See Josh run.)

It's possible the sound of a blown light bulb
is a little like the
sound of a gunshot. Josh wouldn't know anything about that but he
tries to keep the fact that his house is in partial darkness a
secret for as long as possible. He feels strangely confident about
it; ushers Donna out of rooms before she has time to notice. He
starts thinking he doesn't need light, doesn't need electricity. He
gave back the card but he has an advantage: when they're writhing
from madness and Mad Cow disease, he'll already know how to live in
the dark.

He starts to think that maybe he's invincible.

III. In which Josh goes back to work

Mostly, Josh hates that everyone knows.

The Surgeon-General compliments his lovely
scar. The guy he buys
beer from knows he was in surgery for fourteen hours. Gives him free
beer. Tells him he's brave. He can't trust that when people
say, "Hi, Josh," they just mean, "Hi, Josh," not, "Sorry
to hear you
got all shot up."

He winces while shrugging on his suit jacket
and catches Ginger
eying him sympathetically. She blushes and looks across at Bonnie.
He thinks he might strip off and run naked through the building,
plans to run along the terrace outside the oval office, red scar and
ribs reflected on each window. Come catch me, motherfuckers.

"I'm Josh. Lyman." Josh shifts on
his feet. The secret service guy
nods.

"And you are? Josh asks.

"Agent Rudy Hamlin, sir."

"Nice to meet you, agent." Josh tries
to sound casual, glances
across the wide cream room, but there's nothing to say except, "I
was wondering if I could take a look at your gun."

Rudy doesn't pause. "No, Sir, I'm afraid
you can't."

"Right."

"There are protocols."

"What if I were, say, the President?"

"Not even then."

The week before he was due to leave the hospital,
the Enquirer
published photographs taken in his hospital room. He doesn't
recognise himself in them. CJ denounces the paper at a press
briefing. The White House receives thousands of letters praising
Josh's bravery, calling him a hero.

Later, CJ says to him, "well, at least
you know you've arrived. You
know when the fucking Enquirer's rooting around in your rubbish that
you're someone, Joshua. You're America's hero."

There are ways in which words (bravery, heroism)
lose their meaning
in this. For every hand that shakes his, mouth that says, "Welcome
back," he can't shake the fact that there was no choice in these
events, that he never had a chance to see it coming.

"I'm sorry, sir." The agent repeats
and he means to move Josh along.

He wants to take the agent's gun and hold it
as far from his chest
as possible. He wants to look square into that dark hole, 'cause the
last time he never had a chance to see it coming.

IV. In which Josh finds Kenny on a street corner

Josh is contemplating the strength of bones
when he finds Kenny
staring at a stop sign on the corner of Marsden and Union. The sight
of Joey's translator transfixed by a street sign is enough to
momentarily shake Josh's preoccupation.

"You don't have these in-?" Josh
stops speaking when he realises he
doesn't know where Kenny is from.

Kenny doesn't turn to face Josh. "There's
a joke in this sign,
somewhere. Between Wittengenstein and Freud. I don't know how it
goes but the punch line is "sometimes a sign is just a sign."

"Does Joey know you roam the streets writing
college dissertations
about semiotics and council property?"

Kenny turns to Josh, finally, and shakes his
hand. Josh notices a
scar running from Kenny's thumb to his wrist. He thinks he's never
seen Kenny alone before and wonders where Joey is.

"Joey's sick," Kenny says, without
prompting.

"I didn't – Is she alright?"

"She's just sick. She'll be fine."
A level pause, purposeful and
revealing because then Kenny says, "It's great to see you, Josh. You
made it back to work so quickly."

Josh has started thinking about Mariah Carey
in situations like
this. Intellectually, he knows hearing, "There's a hero, if you look
inside yourself" is enough to make anyone put their hand through a
wall. Still, Josh reaches out to lean against the street sign and
makes contact with the post a little harder than he should have. The
dull thud spreads in his hand.

He contemplates telling Kenny how he wonders
about invincibility.
How sometimes he believes his bones can no longer break and imagines
stepping off a curb to test this theory.

"The thing about street signs, Josh, is
that they only rely on one
sense. There's colour and words but that's not enough if a person's
blind."

"You know, I think if a person's blind
and driving, we've got bigger
problems than the street signs not appealing to all five of their
senses."

Kenny laughs and, "Yeah, you're right."

Kenny speaks differently when he's not translating.
Josh is thinking
about Joey in a terry-towelling robe and about the scar running from
Kenny's thumb to his finger.

He thinks of Joey and it's Kenny's voice in
his head.

He says, "I was gonna grab some take-out.
You wanna join me?"

V. In which Josh and Kenny get drunk

Turns out Kenny can speak four languages fluently,
three more
conversationally. He's worked as a translator for the U.N and
interned with a Democratic pollster while he was in college. He
learned to sign because his sister was in a car accident when she
was eight. She died four years later. Josh doesn't tell him they
have sisters in common.

Josh doesn't ask many questions and Kenny offers
answers unprompted.
Josh is grateful for a conversation not cloaked in concern.
Everybody knows he was shot, even Kenny, and Josh can't pretend that
isn't true. He has trouble finding the energy to make sure everyone
is all right with what happened; with assuring people that he's all
right with what happened.

Mostly, he feels like he's being babysat. Mostly,
he hates that
everyone knows.

He's so used to dealing with Joey directly,
he's surprised by Kenny;
by his easy, unfolding conversation. Josh sneaks a secret side
glance as they walk to his apartment. Kenny's telling Josh about
leaving the U.N. and says, "I found I was saying the same thing to
people, just in a different language."

Josh only speaks one language and sometimes
not even that well.

He says, "I speak one language and sometimes
not even that well."

Kenny laughs and surprised, Josh does too.

"So why aren't you- You and Joey have
worked together for so long.
Why aren't you-" Josh falters.

"Why aren't I a pollster? I don't know,
why aren't you President?"
Kenny takes a bite of his chicken. While Kenny chews, Josh fiddles
with the label on his beer bottle, pushes his chair back a little
and plants his feet on his coffee table.

Eventually Kenny says, "I like being an
interpreter because it's
someone else's words." He looks across the room, maybe
uncomfortably. His eyes fall on the basketball resting precariously
on top of the bookshelf between the Truman biography and the wall.
Josh was almost seventeen when his dad got the ball signed by Bill
Walton. "Dear Josh," it says in thick black pen. "Do well in
school".

Josh peels the label completely off the beer
bottle, "I kept that at
work but then, you know, Toby started his ball thing and it seemed
like an easy target." He balls the label up and watches it
spectacularly miss the bin. "We used to play a few games, before it
got nasty. The President banned it."

"A President who banned basketball. I'm
glad I didn't vote for him."

Josh's feet hit the floor. "Didn't vote
for him?"

"No, it's not-," Kenny laughs, "I
didn't vote for anyone. There are
a lot of things I didn't agree with in Bartlet's campaign. Well,
your campaign, I guess."

"Things you didn't agree with? Fuck, we
make decisions I don't agree
with every day, but, but you-"

"-by those who show up," Kenny interrupts,
"Yeah, I've read that
speech. Except, Josh, I know how decisions are made. Don't talk to
me like you're giving the Marjorie Dupont
lecture. This is what I do for a living."

"He's, you know, they figure some day
guys with guns will try and
break into the place."

"Guys with guns?" Kenny laughs. "I
grew up in South Central; we took
one in the chest for gym class." And then, after the silence, "Oh
Jesus. I'm sorry. I didn't-"

Josh waves the apology away; the gesture is
heavy, familiar.

His fourth beer pops open, and everyone in
Washington knows Josh
can't drink. Especially Josh who has to squint to peel the label off
the bottle.

When Josh thinks of Joey, it's Kenny's voice
in his head. Kenny
shifts in the chair, coughs out emptiness in his throat. He has
hands that hold words, a voice that captures others. Three voices in
one man and as Kenny leans forward to rest his bottle on the desk,
Josh wants it all.

VI. In which Josh is surprised

So Josh kisses Kenny. It's beer and it's warm.

"I didn't- I wasn't… expecting that."
Kenny's hands still on his
bottle and Josh stares. He'd never imagined those hands could hold a
kind of silence.

Josh lies easily, after all these years, after
this year: "Yeah, me
either."

Kenny's standing close enough that he's just
blur and beery breath
and dark grey suit. Josh squints at him. All Josh's practice not
looking at translators makes it possible that Josh has never
actually seen Kenny. He certainly can't remember how Kenny looks.

Josh lowers himself, winces as his knees thud
the last two inches to
the carpet but he looks up and grins past Kenny's cock to his foggy
face. Soon Kenny's hands are in his hair, and Josh smiles around
the cock in his mouth. Next those hands will sign politics and
figures but they are both Josh's now, and they tighten and tighten
in his hair.

VII. In which Josh considers love

Josh has never been in love. At fifteen and
listening to Eagles
songs in Lynn Schwartz's carpeted bedroom he learned to smile and
nod at all the right times. But every time he starts something he
remembers to nod and forgets what he's supposed to say.

Josh never wanted to be in love. He's seen
young girls, tanned legs
spread, holding in their stomachs while their shining mouths lie
slack. He's seen men left alone, the dark and the drink running
rings around their eyes. He's seen that bright fizz of terror when
one hand unexpectedly brushes another.

Kenny calls and it's not Joey speaking.

"How's the head?"

Josh lifts a hand to pat his hair and says,
"This head? Yeah yeah,"
as though he's never thought about his head before. It hurts. He
wonders if he knows everything there is to know about Kenny now.

"You want my number?"

Josh doesn't write it down but says, "Thanks,
man." and he suddenly
remembers Kenny's eyes, set firm in his face. "I got things, late-"

"I know, Joey'll be there," Kenny
says. Kenny's voice is easy.

Josh doesn't ask, "Will you?" cause
even if Kenny's there Joey will
be too. After Josh hangs up he buries the phone under a defence
briefing.

He growls a "Go away" as Donna stands
under her bright hair and
lists things at him, also brightly.

There's an ache in Josh's knees and jaw and
eyes. "Go away," he
tries again.

"I've told you before-," she begins
and is still talking as leaves.

Josh never wanted to be in love. But he took
a bullet and he got
back up. He took a bullet in the chest and he's still standing.

(Look at Josh now.)

VIII. In which Josh buys Joey a drink

Someone killed two military boys in Guam, both
newly recruited
eighteen year olds and both from Oklahoma. Sam can sing even the
girl parts of the musical. Those are two of tonight's reason for
Josh leaving the West Wing late, badly in need of a Tylenol and
sleep.

Outside Joey is standing on the kerb, arms
by her sides. And Kenny
is half way down the street, hands in his coat pockets.

Before he reaches her, Joey says, "Joshua,"
and turns around. She
has, perhaps, some sort of heightened sense of smell. Or she knows
his shoes and felt the pavement shake.

"Hey. You okay?"

"Walk with me?" she says, and he
does. All the way to her hotel,
where the bar is wrapped around a twenty-five foot water sculpture
and he buys her a gin and tonic, no ice.

"Fear of running water." He can't
remember it and frowns. "Sam would
know, he used it in a speech once."

"Potamophobia," Joey says. "I'm
not afraid of running water. I'm
embarrassed by the waste. And the reverberation wears me out."

Josh tries to imagine what it would be like
to hear nothing, tries
to imagine shutting his eyes and effectively eradicating the world.
It's like wearing blinkers. "They probably recycle it."

There's a little white bowl of mixed nuts and
Josh throws some in
his mouth. Peanut, peanut, peanut. Josh never thought to be afraid
of running water. But then Josh never thought to be afraid of
bullets.

"What was the speech about?" she
asks.

Josh can't remember that either. "Tourism."

"I thought about going along with you
to your room, that night in
L.A." Joey says. And it occurs to Josh that Kenny might not tell
Joey everything.

"You thought about it?"

"I might have come," she says, "but
it seemed risky."

Josh shifts in his chair and Joey meets his
eyes.

"Yeah," she says and turns to watch
the water running over the blue
tiles.

Four blocks from Josh's apartment they're working
on some shiny new
building development, all attic windows and balconies. By 6:30 he's
walking past. This early in the morning the equipment has a kind of
deliberate sullenness, as though each bulldozer and each crane is
waiting for something to do with its huge tires and oiled parts.

Another block and Josh buys a paper and a bagel.
It seems every
bereaved family is inviting donations to stop the live animal trade
in lieu of flowers. Josh is tired.

"You want more coffee, love?"

"Thanks." The waitress is wearing
red sneakers in honour, he
supposes, of it being before seven on a Saturday morning.

Josh's mother ran a perfect house. No pets,
no dust, no shoes on
the furniture or sneaker prints on the walls. When Josh was eight he
drew a tiny penis behind the chest of drawers in his bedroom. It
took him half an hour to move the big wooden chest away from the
wall. His mother found the drawing in minutes.

He remembers her face, blotchy with fury. "Get
out of my home," she
said. She packed a bag. She didn't call him back until he'd reached
the corner of Maple Drive, almost a block away.

His mom relaxed a bit as they got older. Joanie
never had a bag
packed for her.

Three floors up, a window is open and through
it Kenny is pulling a
t-shirt over his head. There are plants in pots on the narrow window
ledge. Kenny moves past the window and Josh presses the buzzer for
number 307.

"I didn't expect you on time," says
Kenny as he opens the
door. "Aren't you supposed to be an important person?" He smiles
and
it's suddenly clear this is a date. Josh doesn't point out that he's
the kind of important that can't afford to run late.

"I'll just grab a jacket," says Kenny
and Josh is left gazing at
some sort of Zen structure where water bubbles over a pile of grey
on grey stones.

Josh was almost 28 when he let Jamie fuck him
up the ass in the
upstairs bathrooms of JR's. Jamie's head was too large for his wiry
body but he had cheekbones, a Scottish accent and a degree in
cryptography. More than that Jamie had a sure way of shifting his
weight inside his jeans so all eyes were on him. Josh knew how he
wanted that confidence, wanted to pin it down and fill himself with
it. Instead he was moaning and grunting against the slightly damp
bathroom wall with his pants puddled around his shoes.

Four months later Josh was in hospital, sporting
an unexplained rash
across his chest and belly. He spent four days listening to the
peeping machines in the infectious ward, with doctors muttering HIV
from behind the blue hospital curtains. He didn't call his parents.
Eventually the doctors said "just a virus" and let him go. It was
enough to knock a kind of sense into him.

"Japanese?" asks Kenny and Josh smiles.

They leave their shoes on bamboo mats at the
restaurant door and sit
with their legs stretched out in a pit in the floor. Josh is poking
at his sashimi with chopsticks when Kenny places a hand over his.

"You know, I had this little crush on
you," says Kenny and Josh
can't believe there is any man this brave in the whole world. "I
think this might go good places."

Seven words, Josh counts them, seven words
out of Kenny's mouth and
suddenly they have a future together. Josh is out of breath, like
he's been running. Kenny's saying, "-and in L.A., I thought, I don't
know. I thought about coming to your room."

Josh thinks about L.A.; thinks about Kenny
coming to his room and
finding Joey there. He thinks about the box his mother gave him to
keep in the trunk of his car for emergencies. He notices the way
Kenny's scar flexes with every movement of his hand. He wonders
whether that's what the scar along his chest looks like.

He feels out of breath, like he's been running.
Mostly, in his life,
he's been a good guy. He's done the right thing. Yet when he says to
Kenny, "I'd like to kiss you" it's not exactly what he means.

Kenny tastes like soy and sake and doesn't
notice Josh can't sleep.

XI. In which Josh rewrites history

Professionally speaking, Josh hasn't been concentrating
and suddenly
it's the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the war in Seneket.
Sam never had an older cousin who came back from Seneket so he's
surprised when everyone forbids him to call the anniversary a
celebration.

Toby, whose tour of duty there broke him, somehow,
says, "Because
they lost half a generation's men, and we lost three-hundred."

"Because we freed a country from a dictator
who called himself a
god," says CJ. "But it's not a celebration either way. And you're
not wearing that tie, Josh."

Josh changes his tie, wets his face in the
bathroom and decides he's
a pacifist.

"Josh. Leo's office," says Donna
through the bathroom door.

Josh pushes Leo's office door a fraction too
hard and it thuds
against the wall. Leo eyes him grimly. Joey is speaking. "These are
new numbers and we're noticing some shifts in terms of people's
views of the President as a responsible family man. I'm convinced
this is the time to go pushing amendments to the Child Protection
Act."

Josh can detect nothing new in the space between
Joey's fingers and
Kenny's lips.

Leo nods. "Josh?"

Josh is distracted by Joey's fingers. "It's
a neat parallel. Someone
shoots at the President, the President looks out for the little man,
for the kids. This can only do us good."

In the room only Kenny isn't looking at Josh
as he speaks. Kenny's
eyes are on Joey so when, after a fraction, she signs "excellent"
and smiles, Kenny is right there.

XII. In which Josh remembers being shot

Josh makes coffee the way his mother taught
him. One scoop per
person and an extra one for the pot.

"You want me to get up there and change
the light bulb for you?"
Kenny asks from the living room and Josh quells a hint of
irritation.

"No thanks, man." Josh turns back
to plunge the coffee. As he pushes
down he realizes, too late, that one coffee-plunger leg has slipped
off the bench. The coffee is dark brown and scalding hot across his
arm.

"Ff-uck." (Come catch me.)

Kenny is through the door soaking a tea towel
in cold water before
the pain even hits.

"Just. Hold still, Josh." Kenny's
voice is steady and low and they
stand there, still, for several minutes. When Kenny peels the towel
from Josh's skin there's a reddening welt across Josh's forearm.

"Must hurt like hell," says Kenny.
"You'll be fine. You have a drug
store nearby? We can get some of those burn bandages or whatever."

"I'm okay," says Josh and Kenny breathes
easier. "Come here."

Josh perches himself on the kitchen bench and
pulls Kenny to him
with his one good arm, presses his knees to Kenny's hips. As Kenny
leans in Josh presses his burn to Kenny's side and feels this new,
raw pain with a sort of wonder.

That night in Rosslyn every second opened into
its tenthousand
parts. A flash, his foot thudding on concrete, a heavy jolt in his
abdomen. Underwater voices. Even the sirens were a sluggish burble,
sound after sound. Everything happened slowly.

Kenny draws back to look into Josh's face and
frowns a little. "Let
me get you some ice, yeah."

Josh nods. Kenny opens the freezer, rummaging
through it with his
back to Josh. Josh knows the shoulders, knows the skin under Kenny's
shirt. He thinks he could explain how slow it all was that night.
And that even then he didn't see it coming. Couldn't stop his blood
welling warm and thick between his fingers.

XIII. In which CJ buys Josh a drink

Josh is sitting at a bar with his eyes closed,
attempting to
identify individual nuts by taste. Peanut. Cashew. Peanut? He rests
his elbows on the bar and tries to name every bar in the city that
has mixed nuts. Ike's, Madam's Organ, Union Street. Remington's.
He'd have been a millionaire if he had invested in nuts.

Cashew. Peanut. Almond. Almond. Peanut.

On his right, a chair spins and CJ says, "Buy
you a drink, Madam?"
She flags down a bartender, says, "Get the little woman anything she
wants. I'll have a beer."

Josh looks up. "Two." He adds, patriotically,
"domestic."

Ginger-haired and looking all of twenty-two,
the bartender
says, "Sure thing, Mr Lyman."

CJ tosses a tip on the bar, "Your groupies
are everywhere, Joshua."

Josh slept with one of his groupies, once.
She lived in a share-
house, had dark green sheets and pictures of Elvis above her bed.
The sex was awful and while he waited for her to fall asleep he
counted her suits hanging on the other side of the room.

There are two televisions above the bar. Josh
tips the bartender and
watches CJ on television. The non-television CJ says to the
bartender who mysteriously knew Josh's name, "Hey, buddy, wanna
switch that thing off for a while?"

Josh knows CJ well enough to know she won't
watch herself unless she
has to. He also knows her well enough to know the question that's
coming next. The television above the bar flickers to a point and
then blacks out. The jukebox is playing Dusty Springfield and CJ
says, "so is this the thing where I need to be worried about you?"

Josh thinks of all the times CJ has taken Toby
back, all the times
they've sat at this bar. He says, "no."

"I'm just saying, it's only been a couple
of months since, you know,
and you're making what I can only surmise is a major lifestyle
change with Joey Lucas' interpreter."

Josh says, quietly, "It's not a major
lifestyle change."

CJ is silent for a moment and then swivels
in her chair to face
him. "Oh. Is this why you didn't want to be set up with my friend
Louise?"

"No, I didn't want to be set up with your
friend Louise because she
habitually quotes Jaws III."

"I wouldn't say it's habitual."

"Jaws III, CJ. The bad one, when even
Dreyfuss and Spielberg refused
to return."

CJ laughs and waves for another drink. "You
used to have a thing for
Joey Lucas."

Josh doesn't tell CJ that he still does. "Yeah."

"But you're sleeping with Kenny."

Josh stares at the blank television. "I
guess so."

CJ touches Josh's forearm gently where the
bandage bulges a little
under his shirt. "How did this happen, Josh?"

When Josh looks at her, CJ is nothing but kindness.
"I knocked over
a pot of coffee."

CJ lets her hand rest on Josh's. Protective.
"How did Kenny happen?"

"I don't know. He was standing on the
side of the road. He has this
scar on his hand. I don't know." Josh wants to say something
like, 'because he has all the words' but no one speaks like that in
real life.

XIV. In which Josh makes an offer

Kenny's eyes have this new red rim of concern
and there's something
terrifying about that look. Because Josh was okay, he thinks he
remembers being okay, when Kenny didn't wake to read the newspaper
before him. And Josh is okay enough to realise four and five come
after three and there's at least a page missing from his newspaper
each morning.

"What, are you censoring the news?"
Josh asks, annoyed. "You know I
get the paper at work."

At night over burgers in the back room of the
Rembrandt Kenny
says, "I'm sorry. I just want to
protect you."

Josh thinks Kenny missed out on that long ago.
Instead he says, "I
know," and tries to smile. He's never seen Kenny so grey. Burger
juices drip down Kenny's hands and fall from his wrist to land back
on his plate.

Josh thinks about the morning he walked into
a grocery store that'd
just been robbed. The clerk was sobbing behind the counter and Josh
stepped over broken glass to pick up the box of cereal he wanted.
There was a welling in his throat and Josh had never before
remembered the sound of glass under shoes, the smell of gunpowder
burnt skin. He walked home quickly, barely made it inside before the
vomit pushed through his lips.

Josh swallows, looks at Kenny and wants to
leave the Rembrandt. "You
look exhausted. Let me take you home."

Kenny's hotel room is far above the city. Yellow
light rises from
headlights and streetlamps below and seeps through the window and
under the sheets. Josh presses his knuckles to the naked curve of
Kenny's spine. "You want me to take you to the airport in the
morning?" Though it's not the kind of thing you can unsay and Josh
has to be around for a photo op in the White House gardens.

"Thought you had to be at that photo op
tomorrow." Kenny rolls over.

"Yeah."

"And we have to give our driver something
to do anyway. But thanks."
Josh can hear the smile in Kenny's voice. Kenny shifts closer and
kisses Josh with his tongue, one arm groping about beside the bed
for a condom.

"Roll over," he says.

Josh spreads his legs and presses his face
against the mattress.
Kenny's thighs are warm between Josh's, all lean damp muscle under
skin. And Josh is spread open and hard against the bed. Maybe Josh
wants to remember this tomorrow night when he's home, living in the
dark. But he feels desperate. He feels like he's stealing the last
of something.

XV. In which Kenny calls from California

There are about a hundred fourth graders in
folding chairs on the
slightly damp front lawn. The President is squinting a little in the
sun and saying, "So who's gonna take over from me when I'm done?"

Most of the kids stick a hand in the air.

"You reckon you could do a better job
here than I'm doing?"

Some kid has the bad judgement to nod earnestly.
His mother or
teacher smiles approvingly.

"Come on up here, then," says the
President. "And give me some
advice." The kid clambers forward and earnestly shakes the
President's hand.

"He's worse than Cosby," mutters
Toby, to Josh's left. "The kid
looks cute now but just wait for him to be some sort of crazed
libertarian."

"I'm expecting the worst," says CJ,
her eye on the press.

Josh keeps catching sight of planes in the
distance overhead. Their
lurking metal bodies seem so unlikely, with nothing but air between
them and the ground.

The President's saying, "Of course you'll
concede that keeping
interest rates low may offset the contractionary impact of
reductions in the cyclically adjusted deficit without triggering
inflation." The kids nod and giggle.

Josh thinks of Kenny, of the space between
the air and the ground,
thinks of all the things he can't stop.

He says, "I'll be in my office" and
feels their eyes on his back as
he crosses the lawn. Blades of grass stick to his dewy shoes.

Inside Donna is tussling enthusiastically with
a filing cabinet
drawer. Ginger is waving a blue binder at Bonnie and complaining
loudly about Toby. Leo is yelling for Margaret. Josh closes his
office door and when the phone rings he doesn't pick up.

Kenny leaves a message. "Sorry to have
missed you. Give me a call at
the office if you're around."

Three or so hours later. "Heading out
for dinner with friends, but
I'll call when I get in."

"Dinner was good. Hope you're okay. I
hate that I'm not gonna see
you tonight. Give me a call, hey?"

A day goes by before Kenny leaves another message.
All short
sentences.

"How's D.C? I miss you. Call me."

It's become habit, leaving the phone to ring.
Josh scrunches his
face, winces through the tone and tone. There'd been moments just
before sleep when Josh's brain clung to Kenny. He'd stretch out his
foot; brush his toes against the back of Kenny's calf. Need was
awkward and ugly.

It's a Sunday night and Josh sits in the dark
and listens to the
message again.

XVI. In which Kenny arrives at Josh's door

The thing with Mandy (the end of the thing
with Mandy) taught Josh
how to break up with someone. Taught him how to make it clean. But
then they were carnivores, and truth is neither wanted to stay
around long enough for it to sting.

It's different with Kenny. Josh had a chance
to see this coming and
still-

Kenny arrives on Josh's doorstep; satchel slung
over one shoulder,
paper bag of groceries in the other hand. Kenny sings Paul Simon in
Josh's kitchen and can make flowers from carrots. Mostly, in his
life, Josh's been a good guy. He's done the right thing.

Josh says as Kenny walks past him, "You
came a long way just for the
weekend."

Kenny washes vegetables in the kitchen sink.
Josh feels a kind of
panic as Kenny says, "It's no big deal, I had some vacation time
owing. Thought I'd spend a couple of days in D.C."

And although Kenny doesn't say, "With
you", it's what he means. Josh
doesn't want Kenny to take a vacation because of him. He watches the
knife in Kenny's hands slice quickly through carrots and radishes.
It stings to see that bright blade so close to fingers.

Kenny says, "Joey was afraid she'd have
to bail me out with the
phone company." He grins a little, ruefully. And Josh thinks that
Kenny has no right to be kind.

Still, Josh reaches out and runs the back of
his hand along Kenny's
forearm. Still, he eats the vegetables. Still he says, later in the
dark, "I missed you." And even though Josh wakes repeatedly in the
night, frightened that Kenny's up and changing the burnt-out light
bulbs, it's a kind of truth.

(Close your eyes and I'll kiss you.)

XVII. In which Josh thinks about his mom

After the shooting Sam said, "But for
a team of brilliant surgeons
and two inches of a miracle this guy's dead right now." Josh stood
straight with his back against the door and marvelled at the ease
with which Sam articulated his anger. He wished he could hold it
down long enough to name it, to talk about it.

Kenny's satchel hangs from a chair, dirty dishes
pile in Josh's
sink. Kenny's fingers are in Josh's hair. It's more than the words
when he says, "I missed you, Josh. I've been so worried about you."

Josh knows he missed Kenny but not enough to
carry the weight of his
concern. He wants to say, "There are things I wouldn't know how to
tell you. There are things that stick in my throat, still." He wants
to say, "I can't keep you safe Kenny and I don't know how to fall in
love when I know that."

Instead he says, "Sssh," and pulls
Kenny down on the sofa.

And then Letterman's saying, "A lot of
people don't know this about
me but I'm actually clinically blind; I mean, I haven't seen a thing
in fifteen years." Kenny draws circles on Josh's chest. Josh's shirt
feels thin under that steady touch. Somehow Kenny is always speaking
with his hands, so even this is a conversation.

Kenny traces the scar on Josh's chest as though
it's a code he can
decipher, a language he already speaks. He says, bright eyed, "We-
Joey and I, the whole office, the whole office and half of
California, Josh, we were all pulling for you that night."

Josh's heart is beating much too fast. And
there is no language for
these moments.

When Josh thinks about the shooting, he thinks
mostly about his mom.
There are a thousand ways he wishes he could have stopped her
picking up the phone, stopped her thinking she might be the only one
left alive. It's not guilt, exactly, but something close enough.

His mom stayed with him in D.C. during his
first week out of
hospital. All the drugs that ran through his system means he
remembers only his peripheral vision and the back of her hand wiping
away her tears. He couldn't stop her crying so instead he tried to
stay awake when she watched afternoon television. He tried to let
her know he was okay.

Josh's skin stretches tight across his chest
sometimes. There's a
way in which he's embarrassed about the messy scar under his shirt.
Sam was right: but for a team of brilliant surgeons and two inches
of a miracle, Josh is dead right now. So that every time he takes
off his shirt he remembers his breathing in is borrowed. He can't
name it, can't pin it down (couldn't stop it) but knows it's so much
more than ten inches of puckered red flesh.

Kenny's gripping his shoulder and Josh thinks
he can't keep Kenny
safe but, at least, he can stop this. So when Josh says, "It's not
that this thing isn't-" he means to say, "You're not what I
expected" and maybe, "I can't do this." He means to say that
he's
scared. Of course, Kenny's accustomed to reading the whole story
from someone's fingers and lips.

They're in Josh's living room, standing either
side of the sofa.

Kenny nods slowly. "I thought it worth
a shot, though," he says.

Kenny's never left stuff at Josh's place but
when he goes Josh
doesn't know what to do with the half glass of Merlot on the coffee
table.

XVIII. In which Josh-

Joey's been brought in on the new welfare package
so every couple of
weeks Kenny turns up in a meeting. He's not really speaking for
himself and there's a new silence about him.

CJ eyes Josh judiciously. "Joey's gonna
be at this thing tonight,"
as though Josh didn't know, as though Josh hadn't made Donna retie
his bowtie three times. CJ holds Josh's lapels and shifts Josh's
suit on his shoulders.

Through the arched windows of the State Room
the night is perfectly
black and clear. Kenny's hands and lips are across the room. Josh
watches, in between insulting Amy Gardiner and apparently women in
the workforce, single mothers, recent immigrants, philanthropists
and Eleanor Roosevelt, while deriding Toby's taste in artwork.